Nadine Champion

Here is what she shared with us. She learned it from martial arts, but it applies to everything. I copied it down in point form so I’ll keep it that way.

Fear = self doubt = hesitation.

Have you ever had a missed opportunity or just let it go?

Why did you let that happen?

Is there something you love: a hobby, a job, a sport?

Who do you get advice from, who is your mentor?

How did you find them?

What did they teach you?

How good are you really?

Even on your worst day, are you able to change your thinking?

You can’t blame anyone else for how you respond to a situation. Take responsibility for you. You are who you believe you are, who you say you are. But if you don’t have a strong inner sense of who you are, then who others say you are can take over your view of who you are. So don’t frame your world with little words.

Taking Yourself Seriously

This isn’t how Nadine said it, but it is what I took from it. In order to know who you are, you have to be prepared to accept who you are. To do that, you have to be able to describe yourself. And the best way to do that is to make a list of who you are and what you are good at. She asked each of us to do this and I’ll write it here so you can also have a go.

So who are you? What are you good at? Write the list:

first thing

second thing

…

…

…

It isn’t as easy as you initially think it might be. We aren’t taught to do this. We don’t teach our children to do this. We don’t teach our employees to do this. But we should. So here is how to go about it:

Start with 5. Most of us can handle 5 as a first step.

Work up to 50.

But if you really want to be a champion make it 100.

And then do it for the people you care about. Start their list for them! A pretty solid challenge for me. The Australian tall poppy syndrome fights against this sort of behaviour.

In kickboxing, it takes 10 seconds to walk from the dressing room to the ring. Many people get to the dressing room then decide not to take that 10 second walk. This is where the title of here book comes from. How often do we take some steps forward toward a goal, then step back?

She has poured everything she has learned from he mentor, Sensei Benny or Benny Urquidez. And then added her own experience of it and how it was able to help her win at something she was not sure she could.

Nadine Champion – 10 Seconds of Courage

Here are some quotes she shared.

I always thought I would sink, so I never swam (Malibu lyrics, Miley Cyrus ).

For me giving up is way harder than trying (Champion, Kayne West).

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear (Ambrose Redmond).

And she also shared how she won her second last fight carrying 3 injuries and breaking a finger during the fight. She decided that if she pulled out, she would never be able to say that she gave it everything she had. And she couldn’t win if she stepped back. So she stepped up and in and did her best. That fear did not stop here. She was not sure she could win, even had doubts about it given her injuries and lesser experience. But she won.

Nadine Champion – Wins

Another perspective she shared was that it doesn’t hurt less if you close your eyes. Pretending it isn’t happening doesn’t change the fact that it is. So you might as well keep them open and acknowledge reality. At least then you can fight back, dodge, do something. She didn’t know it at the time but this would be her second last fight because she found a lump that turned out to be cancerous and had a different battle for the next 3 years.

She has an inspiring TEDx talk titled 10 Seconds of Courage: Life Lessons from a Fighter. Definitely worth watching.

Changing the world is hard work, regardless of what you are specifically trying to do. My takeaways are: